HOWTO: create a panels homepage for organic group nodes?

I was just curious. Are you talking about being able to set a default layout of panels for a group home page?
If so, that's what I was just trying to figure out how to do. I want to have my group admins to have the ability to edit the content of a group panel page, but I'd like to have a default one be generated automatically when a new group home page is created. So far I haven't had much luck.

I would need this feature too, at least as long as og_panels doesn't make it easy to have (1-x) preconfigured panel pages to use for groups.

EDIT: I found out how group start pages may be made - if you have only Panels3 active, you can set designs per "node template" for each content type, and since group start pages are a certain content type, it should work. (However, in context with og_panels this setting seems to get wonky).

As I wrote in the forum thread, I think there's some glue between Panels and og_panels missing:

I think the missing feature is to have the possibility to have a setting in the Panels menu somewhere that this panel page should be available as group start page, and then have the list of such configured pages available for selection on the groups home page.

Other than that, this module comes in just the right moment because everyone's asking for this functionality in my og-based Intranet - so, great work!

you can set designs per "node template" for each content type

I don't know if I'm missing something, but how do you do that?

You can find it via Panels > Manage Pages area (on the top right) > Node template:

admin/build/pages/edit/node_view

(Note that it doesn't work really when og_panels is active.)

And it took me quite some time in my irc drupal channel to find out about this option (thanks to dereine for pointing me at it!)

This is done by creating a variant of the node/view page that has a selection rule of node type set to your group node type. any time the user visits a node of this type it will display the panel layout with appropriate views or other content.

OG panels offers more in that it allows you to create menu tabs for different aspects of a groups content.

The problem I have with og_panels here (as far as I see) is that I would have to configure a home page manually for every group! That's not a good thing when I've got 30 of them :/

I dream of having the possibility to design a few panel pages and offer them in a select box on the og_panels tab on the groups's home (for group admins), and alternatively the possibility to not use any of the designs but to create one manually (if I am drupal admin).

I agree with both #7 and #6. I don't want to have to manually make all the group pages, but I will if it's needed.
I also like the ability to add the tabs where needed.
If you can get away with not needing custom menus, the node/view page route sounds the best.

if og_panels has a 'group from node' relationship, that is all you need to set up a default panel using the node_view system page. You could set up the selection rule for the node type, use the contexts to acquire the group node from the node (which is the same node but being a group will open up group specific content) and c'est voici.

I'm having the same problem. I'm using D6/P3 and I want to set up a default panels page for all groups present and future.

-If I install og_panels I can set up individual panels for each group, but I can find no way to make a default panel for all groups.

-If I disable og_panels and make a panel based on node type (in this case, the "group" node type) it doesn't work. When I preview it in Panels, by typing in a Node ID of a known group, it outputs the correct information. However, when I go to that same Node ID (a.k.a. the group home page) it still shows up with the default OG layout (not the panel layout).

Ok, so I figured it out. I had to have og_panels enabled *and* make a separate Panels variant in order for it to work (also, it was the only way "Organic Panels" options showed up in Panels.

I had to:

1. Enable og_panels module
2. Edit Node View Template
3. OG Panel - Selection rules - and select the Organic Group content type
4. Save and update
5. Add a new variant
6. Panel Variant type
7. Optional Features - Context and Selection rules
8. Added Content type as I did in #3
9. Added a Relationship "Organic Group from Node"

When i followed these steps I got an Organic Group tab in the "add content" section.

Works very well!

Thanks minus!
I don't know which step I was leaving out, but now when a new group is created, the home page is a panel page.

The only thing I need to come up with now is some sort of guidelines on secondary pages. Since I don't know yet what the users are going to want, I can't preset page templates for them to use. I also don't want to have to train any group admins on using views.

Right now, to have panels for your organic groups, you have two options :
- Setting a variant for the Organic group homepage by using "node type" selection rule. In this case, you have one generic panel for all your %node_type nodes.
- Let users create custom "pages" (in fact panels) from scratch, for each group.

Thank you jide

I can see how users can create custom pages from scratch for each group but I don't see how you can create a generic page from " node type" selection rule when you create a variant for the organic group home page. How does that create a homepage?

Also I don't see " SELECT ORGANIC GROUP CONTENT TYPE" as an option from selection rules that Minus was talking about earlier. Any ideas?
thanks

I am following the steps Minus showed above but at step #7 context I am asked for the NID of the group?
I chose " organic group" from context and clicked "add" then I got another box asking for NID of group. Any Idea what I am supposed to put there? Also when I click on preview, I get a box asking for NID argument. Does anyone have any idea what I am supposed to put there or am I going about it the wrong way. I want auto panel homepage for all my groups.
Thanks

minus, I think your approach is exactly what I'm looking for, but I don't quite understand the directions. Forgive me for my ignorance.

I have enabled the og_panels module, but I'm stuck at step 2. "Edit Node View Template".

I went into my views page and I do not see og_panels anywhere in there. I see many other og options (ex: og, og_files, og_ghp_ron, og_members, etc).

I will offer a $25 bounty (payable via paypal) if somebody could create a step by step tutorial for this process outlined in minus's post (steps 1-9) with screen shots.

I'll give it to you for free :)

Will be back later with screenshots :)

here you go :)

Thank you minus- you rock
I followed your steps and got organic group tab in the add content section but when I update and save I get asked about Node ID. Any Ideas? Thanks

Try to visit a group within youre installation, if you have any. ;)

minus - you are AMAZING.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Now that I have this fantastic group panels page setup, I would like to be able to populate it with content from fields in group registration.

For example, when a user creates a group (in addition to name, description, mission statement) they enter a web address and some other contact info. I would like each field from the group registration to populate a different content area in my panels page.

Do you have any suggestions off hand how I could do this? The group name, mission statement, etc were already in the "Organic groups" section of the content within the panels page, but my other fields are not.

======
UPDATE: I figured it out. For some reason my page wasn't refreshing. After I closed and re-opened my browser and tried adding content, those fields appeared.

Thank you again for all your help!

this is fantastic information thank you for sharing and creating step by step tutorial! very kind.

I'll leave this issue open since people are getting value from it, but am moving it as this is really a panels/page_manager thread.

FWIW: There's a separate idea of having a default og_panel enabled by default that comes from a common template. Sdboyer is working on this for his "blueprints" module.

Thank you minus
it worked

tnx for nice feedback, I have actually created a site because of this, got really motivated to be honest. Thank you! :-)
http://tutorials.mortenn.no

@joshk (#26): On the og_blueprint page it mentions:

OG Blueprints will never be _directly_ ported to D6 - when the time is right, it will be rewritten as a core part of CTools/Panels.

I'm not sure what Sdboyers has planned but I presume part of this functionality will now have to also be in og_panels.

Thank you very much Morten!
Hope this pdf gets to the frontpage of this module, so people can easily download it. It´s very easy to follow!!

THANKS!!

Rosamunda

Hi all,

I've just dropped Joomla and restarted with Drupal for a project as it seems much more flexible. Still getting my head around all this new terminology...

The instructions on this page were great, I followed them and managed to get a default panels group homepage. However I am having a problem with my primary menu now.

I have a menu item called Groups which links to the standard groups listing page, it highlights when on this page (/og), but when I click on an individual group (eg. /node/3), the nice panels home page comes up, but the Groups menu item is no longer highlighted. I've attached a screenshot to show what I mean. (EDIT: the screenshot actually is just the non-panel group home page...so i guess the menu does the same regardless of panels...)

Is it because I used a variant of the Node to create the groups home page, so the primary menu doesn't register it as part of the Groups menu item? Or perhaps I've done something wrong?

I also managed to get a default group home page with panels using a Node view variant but without using OG Panels. However this also yields the same menu problem.

Much appreciated if anyone has any clues.

MINUS YOU ROCK!

I was struggling with this and found this thread. Thank you so much it worked perfectly!!!

nbluto

We need to get this info into the official documentation somewhere.

Thanks Minus, for your explanation. However I think I'm still doing something wrong. I followed all your steps, and now each group can add its own panels. However, the default panel for the group homepages isn't working. It still displays the og_gp_ron view when I view a group node.

Anyone knows what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!!

EDIT: I can set a specific panel as homepage for that group. But I want one panel which serves as the homepage for all groups.

Very Nice Minus! ......How to say "I love you" in Norwegian?

haha!!! "jeg elsker deg"

Good to see the pdf is working :)

:) One thing I did notice was that pathauto won't create an alias [ogname-raw] for my group node ? Any ideas?

I know that Santa lives in Norway, could you ask him how to copy custom panel pages for each of the group nodes ? :-)

I think this is a Pathauto issue - http://drupal.org/node/399580

:-)

Pathauto fixed!

Jeg elsker deg!

Now, just how to copy pages between Panels?
Hmm.... maybe drupalexecute() on the og_groups/form ? :)

I followed minus' instructions and was able to create a default og homepage. My custom content displays as expected and group context is maintained--shweet!

I then added a second panel page. The page tab and content display as expected, but group context is lost.

I've been playing with this for couple of hours and haven't stumbled on the right combination of settings and searching didn't reveal anything conclusive (although it seems like a common topic). Can someone give me a nudge?

I'm not familiar with what og provides for contexts, but if they did it the way I would have, there should be a relationship that will get a group context from a node context. IF there isn't, then there probably needs to be one.

I tried to force context (in the view header) with the following, but no dice:

if (arg(0) == 'node' && is_numeric(arg(1))) {
  $group = node_load(arg(1));
  og_set_group_context($group);
}

I also added a context "Organic Group from node" relationship to the panel variant, but it didn't make a difference either.

This seems like it should be obvious, but I'm stumped.

That relationship seems to be what you need. YOu then need to make sure that the context it creates is what gets to your panes.

Hi Bacteria Man,

Yes I can confirm that I have the same issue, however if I create a page from my Home OG Group node, all is well. But I need to to have the same page available to my other OG's Any ideas what Ctools function is called for creating these pages?

Cheers...

@merlin:

For testing purposes the second pane is a duplicate (i.e. same content, settings, etc.) as the first (home page) pane. As a result I should have two identical panes however the second pane doesn't have group context.

@ludo:

Yes, I can create additional pages per group as well. However my app requires a set of predefined tabular panes for each group of a particular content type so getting this working is essential.

I will keep digging and report back. Any additional comments/suggestions appreciated.

I think we have to dig into the OG Panels module, to find a solution. Do you agree?

I did some testing today and can confirm group context is being properly set for panel pages other than home page.

I created two panels:

node/%node (home page)
node/%node/test

I added a snippet in the content of test to output the current group node:

print_r(og_get_group_context());

The details block appears as expected on the group home page, but disappears on the test page.

Could it be possible that context is set too late in the page build cycle for the details block to appear?

Hi Bacteria,

I hope I am not clouding the issue, I followed minuses tutorial to create a default home page for OG groups (using the node template), and I am unable to repeat the steps laid out in your most recent post i.e you said you created 2 panels, did you create them from the dashboard ? If so where did you input the OG panel info? (Could you please give exact steps for doing this)

From what I can see, there Is something untoward in the og_panels_form_submit() function, just can't put my finger on it though!

Ludo...

Hey Ludo,

I simply followed minus' directions described in the PDF file. This will produce a custom home page for the defined group content type.

I just devised a workaround to my group details block visibility problem. I simply added the block to my multi-paned group home page, which serves as a dashboard of sorts for each respective group. This arrangement might in fact be better for my particular application.

I'd still be interested in learning how to get the group blocks to behave properly w/ panels. A quick google search for "drupal panels details block" will reveal many people struggling with the same issue.

John

That sounds good,

Could you please give exact steps for creating node/%node/test (I'm struggling!): And does this panel appear in all groups?

Ludo...

Yes, the tabular panel pages are accessible to all groups of a particular group content type. (Sidebar: this is essential for my application where group managers are not permitted to create additional pages.)

Creating a new panel page for a group:

Basic settings
1) admin/build/pages/add

Argument settings
2a) Administrative title: Test
2b) Machine name: test
2c) Path: node/%node/test
2d) Variant type: Panel
2e) Optional features: (check all)

Access control
3a) Context assigned: Node: ID
3b) Node type: (your group content type)
3c) All criteria must pass.

Menu settings
4a) Type: Menu tab
4b) Title: Test

Selection rules
5a) Add: Node: type
5b) Node type: (your group content type)
5c) All criteria must pass.

Contexts
6) Relationships: Organic Group from Node

Choose Layout
7) Choose layout: (whichever)

Panel Content
8) add content to pane(s) as required

Click Finish, and then Save.

Browse to a group node (of content type defined above) and behold your new tabbed pane. :-)

Ok Thanks for that,

I get as far as:

Contexts
6) Relationships: Organic Group from Node

I don't have that option, all I have is: Organic Group, then It asks me for a group ID ???

Update:

Finally got it to work, phew!! The last step was I had to enable it on admin/build/pages it defaults to disabled!

subscribing

BTW, huge props to merlin for the brilliant module. I especially like the wizard breadcrumbs. I've been meaning to examine the code to see how that's accomplished and would love to adapt it for one of my own modules.

@merlin, any insight to how that's accomplished is welcome. :-)

Sadly it's pretty manual. But the form wizard tool is re-usable if you want to make multi step form wizards in your own code. See ctools/includes/wizard.inc -- and there's some documentation in the advanced help, plus Nick Lewis posted a fun example on his blog at http://nicklewis.org

This can be marked fixed?

@merlin, thanks for the nudge and info. I'm anxious to play w/ the wizard and read the referenced blog post.

As for this thread yeah, it seems like the original task has been completed.

John

Yeah, great thread!

Big thanks to uncle merlin, Bacteria Man and Minus....jeg elsker deg ;-)

Ludo...

Yeah I think this can be marked as fixed. Feel free to reopen if needed.

subscribe

Ihate to do this, but I followed the pdf instructions and can get everything to show , but group posts?

I have tried to select node body, og_ghp_ron, how can I get the group post to also appear in the panel?

ok.... make sure you send the argument to it... fate has brought me back to this... http://drupal.org/node/725724#comment-2657222

Im having the same problem as 2 posts up. No group posts in my nice group panel. I presume i would be adding a view. I presume this view but as you can see it's overridden.

Overridden Node view: og_ghp_ron (og)

Overridden by Panels?

you need to make sure you enable the option to pass arguements..

ah hah i see now AntiNSA. I had to make up a new view and give it OG Group FILTERS (in group) I added the argument %1 when i added the view to the panel. lovely. tx

Everything works great for me on this... except for I can not get breadcrumbs to work on this.... any ideas on how to make breadcrumbs work with this setup?

I havent got that far yet AntiNSA but i have installed this module
http://drupal.org/project/custom_breadcrumbs

and i think it should do what you/we are after. I have only had a little look at it but it has settings for panes etc. It should do the job. Good luck.

Subscribing

Thanks minus! My groups look much better and it saved me a bunch of time!

subscribing

suscribing.

subscribing
Thank you minus for the PDF in #20 !

"jeg elsker deg" is what you should of said to minus!

The PDF posted by minus is a great walkthrough and likely saved me hours of time today.

I've created a task for OG Panels to have minus' PDF added to the OG Panels project page.
Add PDF Walkthrough Posted by User to Project Page

Sorry if I miss a thing, but I'm not able to activate the Relationships: Organic Group from Node. Every module inclusive og_panels is activated, but in panels 3 there is no relationship like Organic Group. Although the standard panel is getting shown on my test localhost.
Instead, I get a whole bunch of possible Arguments delivered in Contexts. So the attachment shows what I can enable.
Does anyone knows what I'm doing wrong???

Can someone tell me how to create a page with views to link to the panel page discussed in this page? I have created the page as described here, and am tying to figure out the right path in views to enable my views "page" to be displayed in content of the panel page we have created here.

I have tried with no selection rules and content rules....

Also I have tried with

/node/%node/eg_zeropoint_fusion as the path in the panel page and as the path in the views page path...

when I do that in views the address turns out to be something like
http://thecenterofthenet.com/node/%25node/eg_zeropoint_fusion/18483

and I get a page not found error

when I try this

/node/%/eg_zeropoint_fusion

the page address is

http://thecenterofthenet.com/node/18483/eg_zeropoint_fusion

and I cant see the panel I have created.

Thansk for any help on this!

I think you are confused. If you want a view to exist *within* a panel, then you don't want to create the view as a page. You want to create the view as a content pane and then add the content into the panel.

I only want to say that my problems are deleted after doing update.php. So now I can see the correct forms in panels and enabled it.

i love u, Bacteria

fantastic.

When I try to follow the directions in the pdf I get to the point where I am supposed to check the box for both Selection Rules and Context, but I have no option for Context. The module is installed and it is used throughout my site. Is there something obvious that I'm missing?

Do you mean that the Context module is installed and used throughout your site? I don't think the checkbox labeled "context" for Panels has anything to do with the Context module.

I could be wrong, and someone can correct me, if so.

@bba99
Did the same thing the first time, make sure you add a variant and switch the Variant Type to Panel in step 4-5 area and you should see Context appear.

And yes, Context in this "context" (no pun intended) refers to a context within Panels, not the Context module.

I have a big site for a college. the college has different departments. they want to be able to add a department with a home page and a Default menu displaying say something like 'news, publications, blog,.'. I am using organic groups to group the different departments and i thought og_panel panel will do for group home but the og_pannel i have is a little Different from i see in the pdf. All i see in my og_panel sections is a checkboxes of node types and save button clicking on the save button comes back to the same page. I am using rganic groups panels. 6.x-2.0. please advice. Right now i am stuck and on a deadline i am open to any other solutions as well.
NB: this is my second drupal site,little bit of a newbie

Hi,

I've one simple question : is it possible to show the OG panel not just for group homepage but for all posts who are linked to the group (post group) ???

Thank you so much, you've already helped me a lot.

if your using panels matt just make a variant up in the node view panel and make the selection rules your group post node.(admin/build/pages/edit/node_view) you can even set up differnt panels for differant groups by adding other variants and remembering to reorder them so your new variants are up top.

Hi,

I followed minus's instruction, and successfully created a group home page. My question is:

I also want to create different tab pages to display different type of posts in the group, it will looks like:

Home | Story | Poll ...

Is there a way to provide these tab pages by default? Because I do not want each group admin to create these pages by themselves.

Thanks.

Hang

yes, its simple. Click on clone, keep the selection settings the same/

Hi,

Is this the tip for me? I made a clone, and name it as og_homepage_clone, but nothing happened. There is still no tab pages when I browse the group.

Thanks.

Hang

You should use views to create those lists, and then add those views to the panel you just created. You have to use nodeID as an argument for the pane. The view needs a Organic Groups: groups argument, and argument type have to be NodeID (so when viewing a group, all the post from that group is shown because of the NodeID argument.). If you're not familiar with views you should check it out. This is the way I did it for a local newspaper, it works pretty well here.

Jeg elsker deg!

lol!

Thanks a lot, minus.

I understand that I need views to create such lists. When I tried to play with my current panel og homepage, which was created following your instruction, I found that: when I add views elements into the panel, I can put them in different panel region in my layout(but not as tab pages).

However, the thing I am not sure about is that after creating those lists, how could I organize them as *tab pages*:

1) when I enter my group, homepage tab will be the default.
2) I can switch among different tab pages by clicking the tabs.

I think og_panel has the power to create such tab pages, however, I hope to have every group has those pages by default when the group is created.

I am not very familiar with panels and views, but will spend some time on them. Hope I my description is clear enough.

Thanks again for your help.

Hang

You can create tabs by adding more displays to the view, remember the override button so that each display has a unique settings. What you're seeking is a little beyond the basics and may be a little advanced, but i guess you're motivated and solving this will give you lot of knowledge. When the view is ready you can place it in the og_panel and every group will have the tabs available.

I'm not sure this module works with og_panels but it could be an easier solution http://drupal.org/project/panels_tabs .

I would try solving it with the views module, because it's good for you're drupal skills :p

edit: or is it something like this you're looking for? http://drupal.org/node/777784

Morten

minus, you are very helpful, and it is GREAT to know the direction. I will put some effort on learning views and panels, and follow your instructions.

Thanks.

Hang

has Bacteria Man's recipe in #51changed with more recent versions of Panels?

I have 3.7 and in steps 3a and 5a i don't get these options. Only options i have are:

- content exists
- current theme
- php code
- string: url path
- user: permission
- user: role

nvm.. got it now.. in 3.7 steps are slightly different.

Shouldn't this be in the og panels module queue? Or maybe a resource somewhere in the handbook?

@merlinofchaos:

I created an issue for OG Panels a while ago and asked that a link to this be added to the project page for that module. There's no movement on it yet.

#826554: Add PDF Walkthrough Posted by User to Project Page

maybe should be its own issue but seems maybe it is part of the recipe posted here...

is there any way to have URL aliases for the new OG Panel tabs created from this?

currently i have panel setup (as per recipe here):

- Basic -> Path = node/%node/engagements
- Arguments => set %node to context = Node Id

this makes things work for me.. i have a new tab on my OG pages but the url to these is node/[nid]/engagements

ideally i would like the url to be: [group_name]/engagements

thought i could do this with

- Path = %name/engagements
- Arguments => %name = Organic Group

but this doesn't give me a tab.

Yes, i know i could simply add a nodeapi insert hook code to add the alias to alias table every time an OG node is added; but thought maybe Panels would handle this??

subscribing

I have a og_panels homepage setup and working but I can't figure out how to accomplish the following.
What I would like to do split the page with 2 panes left and right
on the left hand side i have views that lists the title of nodes segregated by content and whatever group I happen to be in. (this is working now) On the right I would like to leave the space open until someone clicks one of the links from the view listing. this either pulls up a node or another view and dumps it in the right column while staying on the homepage.
thanks
lowell

This is great! Thanks everyone. Subscribing.

Closing this issue due to lack of activity. Also, OG in D7 integrates much much better with Panels.